


Oh, It's You

by thirteenohtwo



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-10
Updated: 2019-04-10
Packaged: 2020-01-10 19:43:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18414587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thirteenohtwo/pseuds/thirteenohtwo
Summary: Jester has always known what she's wanted in a man... she just, maybe, found it in a woman instead.





	Oh, It's You

_“I can’t wait to be in love!”_

_Marion hums in her melodic, interested way as she weaves pink ribbons in her daughter’s hair. It’s been a long day and an even longer week but she’d bear the burden of working a thousand hours if it meant spending one minute with Jester. Her Little Sapphire. “Is that so?”_

_Jester bounces in the seat, forcing Marion to dodge an errant horn, and brightens. “Yes! I am going to fall in love with the most handsome, dashing, bravest man there ever was! Like one of my stories.”_

_“That’s certainly exciting.” Marion flicks one of the braids to the side and begins working on the next. “He must be pretty special if he’s worthy of your love, my darling.”_

_The little tiefling considers this and nods, her brows tugging together as she taps her chin. “Oh, he’s really, really special. He’s strong, and smart, and kind, and funny, and good!”_

_“I can’t wait to meet him, Jester.”_

_Neither can I, Jester thinks. Her heart aches, a little voice in the back of her head wondering how she will ever meet him when she’s cooped up in her room all day. Every day. How she will ever find the love that fills her books when books are all she has._

**.**

**.**

**.**

**He’s strong.**

Strength is a funny thing, Jester finds. She’s strong, and Yasha is strong, and the Gnolls are strong. Giants are strong. Bandits can be strong. Manticores are  _strong._ But when they’re hit, they go down. And when they go down, they stay down.

Not her and Yasha. At least, not for very long. Not until Beau is skidding through the dirt, one hand clutching a healing potion and the other holding the nasty wound on her side. She pours the potion down Jester’s throat, holding her close as the tiefling coughs and sputters. As magic stitches torn tissue back together and consciousness comes crashing in like a chilly ocean wave.

Dizzy purple eyes roam the sky, locking onto the familiar face of her party’s monk staring down at her with no small amount of relief. Sweat gathered across her dark skin with dirt and grime, her lip split and smile bloody. “Up and at ‘em,” she grunts and pushes up from her knees, standing on unsteady feet. “We’re not done yet.”

Jester says - well, nothing. Her throat is dry, the gashes across her chest still healing, magic gathering at her fingertips. She reaches for Beau’s side, where her vestments are stained a painful red…

But she’s gone again, scooping up her staff and kicking off Yasha’s knee, bringing it down across the monster’s face. Always moving. Always fighting. Never stopping and never giving in.

Jester is strong, she could punch a man through a wall, and Yasha could snap an eldritch horror in half…

But Beau’s strength is different, it’s not something that can be touched. It doesn’t come from muscle or a fist, it’s in the set of her jaw, the steel of her eyes.

Beau is strong.

**.**

**.**

**.**

**He’s smart.**

Schemes are fun and Jester has always had a special talent when it comes to them. Tricky and detailed, or simply flashy and surface, she’s managed to pull most off brilliantly. And when Jester met Nott, it was like meeting her other half. Nott is clever.

Clever and smart are two different things but these things can go hand-in-hand beautifully. They’re aspects that Jester looks for in most people she meets, they might even be the most important. At least the hooks, the things that sink in and capture her attention, that have her digging for more.

“Beauregard.”

The lantern above the table sways in time with the rocking of the boat, wood creaking precariously around them. Jester cracks an eye open from her dark corner of the room, glancing at the table by the door where her friends sit while the others try to sleep.

Caleb leans over the table, elbows propped up in the corners to hold his red, fuzzy chin. His eyes stare hard at the makeshift chess board that Yasha had spent almost a week carving out for the crew. Frumpkin flops onto his side on the table, batting at a fallen pawn. Across from the human, Beau lounges back in her own seat with her legs hooked off the corner of the table. She flips the page of Avantika’s journal, twirling a pencil in her fingers while she hums distractedly.

Jester eyes the way shadows creep across Beau’s face, how the light of the lantern catches the blue of her eyes like astonishingly clear crystals against her dark skin. Her heart thuds awkwardly in her chest.

“Beauregard,” Caleb says quietly again. Intently. He looks up from the pieces to meet her curious gaze. “How. You’ve got my queen. Beauregard, you didn’t even know what the rook was called. How did you capture my queen?!”

A brown shoulder lifts and falls with disinterest. “I don’t know, man. Monks love this game and I love fucking with monks, so I memorized all their tactics. You’re doing the Pit Fall Trap and a Switchy Switch beats that.”

“What?”

Beau grins and closes the journal, sets it on the table to lean forward into the light. “You went here and then there on your first moves, and you keep eyeing this nipple looking piece here. I knew you were gonna do the Pit Fall Trap.”

His lips twitch. Caleb runs a hand through his hair and clears his throat. “You’ve memorized chess moves? You don’t know what day of the week it is but you’ve memorized complex chess tactics to… to spite the other monks?”

“Yup.”

“You’re never what I think you are, Beauregard. I think I’m off to bed. Congratulations.”

He stands and hesitates awkwardly before patting her shoulder, dragging his feet to one of the bunks across from Jester. Frumpkin follows moments later, curling up on the edge.

Exhaustion creeps up after a while, it has Jester’s eyes drooping, and Beau’s profile getting fuzzier and fuzzier. The creaking of the wood and the flipping of journal pages eventually lull Jester back to sleep, but she has one final thought before the dreams consume her.

Beau is clever.

**.**

**.**

**.**

**He’s kind.**

It’s a surreal experience, seeing Beau so open and honest. She  _would_  pick a storm as the setting to come find Jester, to lay bare a vulnerability in an effort to comfort Jester. And the tiefling is touched, watching Beau fidget and glance off to the choppy waters. Telling her about a lonely childhood, reassuring Jester against her worries.

Worries that have been plaguing her since she, Fjord, and Yasha were tossed in the cages in the back of the Iron Shepards’ wagon.

When those blue eyes meet hers again, gentle and compassionate, a sincere smile on her lips before she departs…

Jester staggers forward to throw her arms around the monk, to squeeze her tightly and feel the beat of her own heart echoing in time with pesky thoughts. Thoughts that have no place here and now, thoughts that will remain buried until they’re off the water, at least.

She’s so distracted by the pulse she can feel in her fingertips that when she tells Beau she loves her, she almost misses the reciprocation. Almost.

But Beau’s rough voice rattles around in her chest long after she’s gone below deck, and the warmth of their conversation is a protective layer against the cold barrage of the storm around her.

Beau… Beau is kind.

**.**

**.**

**.**

**He’s funny.**

It’s more sweet than funny but it’s also pretty funny, and Jester’s face hurts from smiling so much. She burns the image in her mind to draw later, her fingers twitching for her pencils, and she hates that there’s no time to just sit down and sketch.

She doen’t want to miss a single detail, and she’s never been so  _thankful_  that Beau has no magical means of disguise.

Magic would have stolen this moment from her.

Caduceus and Beau distract the guards with an animated tale. Despite not having the silver tongue that Fjord does, they do pretty well. Beau holds the belt of her pants high up enough to cover her chest, leaning forward to scowl at the friendly guards with one eye squinted nearly closed. The overly large moustache on her lip twitches, tipping Cad’s enormous sunhat down in what, maybe, could have been considered intimidating if it didn’t look so ridiculous.

Eventually, the guards do move on. A fist is shook at them and they seem more concerned with distancing themselves from the crazy wackadoo than wondering just what the two of them are doing lingering around the edge of the city.

The second the guards turn the corner of the wall, Jester, Fjord, and Nott drop from their perch with bags full of supplies. Something crunches and Jester freezes, praying to the Traveler that she didn’t crush her own bag. They could probably make do with just Fjord and Nott’s but it’s always better to have too much than too little.

Beau sucks on her teeth, jerking her chin up with a charming smirk, and offers a hand. “'Scuse me, little miss,” she murmurs in her best impression of Fjord’s accent. Jester snorts. “Seems you might need a hand.”

“Oh, why, thank you!” Jester gasps and grabs hold. She giggles, hoisted to her feet, and presses a hand to her chest when Beau swings the bag over her own shoulder. “You look so silly!”

“Are you sure you don’t mean dashing?”

Delight has her tail swishing. “Of course, excuse me. Dashing and roguish.”

“Even more than Nott?”

“Well, Nott  _is_  a pretty excellent rogue…” Jester says with a considering hum. “Distinguished?”

“I’ll take it,” Beau agrees with a grin. She hooks her arm with Jester’s and the two follow the others through the trees like some sort of clichè moustachio’s bandit. All she needs is a mask. Every once in a while, Jester is caught staring, and a wink is flashed at her.

**.**

**.**

**.**

**He’s good.**

Beau had volunteered to take the last watch. She usually does and most everyone is more than willing to let her take it - last watch is the worst. Alone, watching the sunrise, knowing you won’t get to sleep afterwards because the day has begun but it also began for you four hours ago.

Whoever takes last watch often has the longest day and sometimes long days suck.

But Beau always offers.

The sky is a dark blue but no longer black when Jester stirs, her eyes falling open. Stars are still sprinkled above her but their light is fading as the horizon gets brighter. She turns her head, looking around the bubble and swallows her heart when she can’t find Beau.

She doesn’t even think to wake the others - already stumbling out of the bubble, dirt and grass against her knees and palms and - oh. Okay. Thank the Traveler.

Beau sits a little ways away in the field. Her back is straight, in a way that seems almost painful to Jester, with her legs crosses in what maybe she called some kind of lotus once when Yasha had asked.

Everyone  _knows_  that Beau is a monk, they  _see_  the blue and they  _see_ her fight and she mentions it to outsiders  _sometimes -_  she uses it to get information or access when all else fails. She even looks like a monk, sometimes, usually, maybe, or maybe they’re just aware she is. Maybe perception is a tricky thing. But Jester’s never been struck with it.

Not like now.

The blue of her vestments glitter in what little light cracks across the sky, the flowing script of her sash so official. Her staff is impaled into the ground within reach, a strip of purple woven at the end - a little piece of Molly in each of her strikes. The ribbons of her hand wraps, of the tie that holds her hair back in a bun, they flit and dance with the gentle breeze of the morning air.

It’s just Beau but she feels… different, like this. She feels more like A Monk Of The Cobalt Soul and less like the hothead who punches ghosts and drags Caleb off the battleground to gather himself.

“How long are you going to stand there watching me?” she asks gently.

Jester blinks and smiles but doesn’t approach. She knows how hard it is for Beau to meditate and she’s not  _totally_  sure if that’s what Beau is doing but she doesn’t want to ruin it on the off chance. “Why did you come with us?” she blurts instead.

It wasn’t a question she was ever going to ask. It’s one she wonders a lot, usually in moments like these. When Beau is Beau but also Beauregard, when Jester catches glimpses of a vastly different life meant for the monk.

“You asked me to.”

Which… well, it’s true. Fjord and Jester had been stumbling through a city neither had ever been to, lost and overwhelmed and not totally trusting each other yet. Jester has always been an optimist and sometimes a little naive- she’s  _aware_  of herself, how could she not be? But she’s not blind, not ignorant to the dangers of a girl travelling alone with a strange man who has even stranger and probably darker magic when she thinks about it.

When she met Beau there was a snap - like a rubber band in her chest that flung out and wrapped around this angry, violent girl. An angry, violent girl with gentle eyes that didn’t think twice when a perfect stranger, a tiefling -momma warned her about the looks, the whispers, the prejudice- asked her to help them find a snake. And then asked her to follow them to the next city. And then asked her to stay, and has been asking her every day since then with silent looks and lingering smiles.

“What about the Cobalt Soul?” she wonders and inches forward, still not intruding - she hopes.

The corner of Beau’s mouth curves up, maybe a smirk or maybe a smile. “What about them?”

“Don’t you wanna go back?”

“Do you want me to?”

Helpful. Jester groans. “Beau, it’s very impolite to answer a question with a question!”

“A thousand pardons.” The words are dripping with sarcasm and finally, she opens her eyes, turning to look at Jester over her shoulder. “I’m where I want to be, Jessie. Don’t worry.”

“But why? Why did you say yes?” It makes sense  _now_ , she’s part of the group  _now_ , ingrained so thoroughly within their family like all the others. They’ve made money and memories, shared laughter and heartbreak, they’ve done great things and are on the path to do even greater.

But in the beginning, it was a boy and a girl with nothing to offer, nothing to earn, nothing to gain.

Sunlight spills over the horizon and bathes Beau’s brown skin in warmth. She shrugs simply, unfolding her legs and stands up to stretch. “You needed help. Why wouldn’t I say yes?’

**.**

**.**

**.**

It’s not too long later when Jester lingers at the edge of the party. That she watches her friends, her family start to gather their things up and get ready for the day.

_"Momma,”_ she says with a twist of her fingers through the air, powers of the arcane sending her words hundred of miles across the land. All the way to the coast.

Beau drops down on the log between Yasha and Fjord, leaning forward to offer Caduceus some of the fruit from her plate.

_“I think I’m in love.”_


End file.
